Monday, May 14, 2012

Calgary Expo Report

I’m back! YAY! So, why isn’t this
the new character design series that I keep mentioning? Well... this
came to my attention and it really needs to be addressed while it’s
still on the news...

See, I could talk about how it was
amazing fun, that I got to meet up-and-coming, or already famous
artists, like Kate Beaton. That my friends Project God Particle were
back with a table in artists ally.

How I found Silent Hill 3 at a vendor's
table, and the Art of Alice the Madness Returns at another. How I
bought lots of great artwork, how I went to the copyright panel, and
the lauriel b panel.

How I got to talk to Lord Zed, Stan-the
man-Lee, John Noble of Fringe (who was nice enough to make a recorded
message for my step dad), saw some of the faces of the cast of TNG,
and actually found a transformers AND a spider man t-shirt in woman
sizes that didn’t involve the color pink or the word girlfriend.

How all the costumes were amazing,
including an adorable kid with an 11th doctor outfit,
while walking around inside a Tardis, which was attached to a
backpack he was wearing (now that’s dedication. Pics will be
on my facebook page soon)

How I got to see Kirby Krackle and a
few other bands, like Septembryo, who played a small concert before
the convention opened.

How I decided “Screw it, just have
fun!” and am no completely broke.

That it was incredible fun, other then
the long lines. Or that I came back home to find that part of my
studio had flooded over the weekend, causing my messy place to become
even more messy.

Nope, not going to talk about that at
all *evil smirk*

Instead, I’m going to talk about
something serious that came to my attention during the convention.
Those that watch the news coming from Calgary or neighbouring cities
probably know what I’m already talking about.

See, not only did the convention
OVERSELL the tickets, but the over crowding was so bad, the fire
marshal had to CLOSE THE DOORS, keeping anyone from getting inside,
including those that had already purchased passes and only stepped
out for a minute.

My and my brother were luckily enough
to find out just in time. But this was incredibly serious and more
then a little sickening. A family who drove 14 hours from Winnipeg
couldn't get in, despite prepaying, people who booked hundreds of
dollars worth of photo ops couldn’t either. OR one parent who
couldn’t get back inside to get his KIDS. That actually happened!

What’s worse is that the con
officials keep saying “no we didn’t over book.” What’s their
reason? Bad timing. They apparently didn’t expect so many people to
show up at once.

...

Here is a few events going on on
Saturday, the day this mess happened:

A larger artist alley then usual

Stan Lee panel

A Fringe Panel

Other guests including Darth Vader, The
Weasley Twins Adam-flippen’-West, George Perez, Dan Parent, Michael
Benyaer (The original Bob from Reboot), LoadingReadyRun, Tara Strong,
Voices from Futurama, Robert Englund (to name a few)

And, oh yeah:

The 25 Star Trek TNG anniversary,
featuring ALL main cast members of TNG including surprise guest
Garrett Wang and JOHN DELANCIE...

...

...

Needless to say, no one is buying the
excuse!

Guys, you KNEW that had so many people
coming. You KNEW that they had so many people coming out of town. And
you knew how many people purchased tickets for extremely expensive
photo ops ,autographs and events.

What’s worse, is that there was
barely enough room for those already inside the convention area. I’ve
been to crowded cons, but this was a mess from people having to shove
each other just to get to one section, to not enough food vendors.

So, it’s a few weeks later, everyone
pretty much got the word out about how completely irresponsible this
was, and the con is issuing refunds to people. Problem solved right?

Not really...Cause what about next
year?

Look, I love the Calgary comic con, and
over the last few years, I've been seeing a lot of improvements:
Equipment was working a lot better, events were separated into better
locations, the volunteers were a lot nicer. but at the same time, a
lot of really inexcusable things continue to happen. And I don’t
just mean the space.

And since, after this fiasco, I have no
idea how much money they will have, or what guests will actually come
next year, (or even if I'm willing to go next year) here are some
ideas as to how they could have improved this year. Please
not, this is only for the amount of people I sawinside
the convention area. also note that i have no actual experience with planning a con. These are just ideas based on what i saw.

1. Train your volunteers better

I get it, their volunteers, they aren’t
being paid, and we should treat them with respect. And I will say
that the volunteers this year were a heck of a lot nicer then the
ones I meet a few years ago at my first Calgary comic con. But many
of the volunteers knew even less about things then me. One person
told me that he had asked a volunteer some whether or not he needed
to pay beforehand to see Stan Lee. She said no. After waiting in line
for some time, he found out he did need to pre pay. I also had
trouble getting a straight answer to some questions, even after
asking multiple volunteers. Something simple like giving EACH
volunteer a means of communicating with each other, like a head set
or a walky talky so they could confirm information would help with
not only info problems, but help deal with any problem attendees they
come across. Heck, everyone seems to have a cell phone these days.
Why don’t you just let people text each other?

2. More room please

Even after the lock-down, it was still
too crowded. I’m a little claustrophobic, but I can normally handle
large crowds such as on the train. But here? Every time I saw an open
space, I leap towards it and let out a gasp for air.

Stop laughing.

The crowds were worse in the autograph
area, the photo op area and the food area. All of which was RIGHT
NEXT TO EACH OTHER. Didn’t help that it wasn't a very big food
area. Now for the guests this year, the photo ops area could have
been put in a different area, but, honestly? It probably wouldn’t
have had to if the food area was moved.

3. More food please

In the main convention hall, there were
a few small food vendors set up, but the guest/photo ops area was
where the MAIN and largest food vendors were.

This was a baaaad idea. The line up for
the main food vendors were as long some of the guest lines.( I’ll
give props to the con organizers who set up signs and traffic lines
on Sunday though.)

First, put the food in a separate
place. Then, bring in other food vendors, and more seating so it
doesn’t take an hour to get food and find a place to eat (not
kidding. My brother was able to get through the extremely long line
to see Stan lee before I finished buying food and finding a seat)
Heck, if it wasn’t over sold this year, I would have said to put it
outside and set up tarps so people won’t get rained on. That way,
traffic would be moving in and out of the building (once again, this
would have worked if the con was no over sold.

4. Prepays were a good idea

in order to see Stan Lee or Sir Patrick
Stewart or a few other guests, you needed to prepay for tickets. This
was a good idea. No really. It cut down on how many people lined up,
and then you wouldn’t be standing in line for an hour, only to get
to the front, and be denied. I seriously think they should expand
upon this. Have more events have prepay tickets to cut down on lines.

Oh and lets not forget one more key
thing...

5. DON’T OVER SELL THE TICKETS!

Overall, ya, I did have fun. Not as
much on Saturday due to the crowds and just how many lines I had to
stand in just to do, well, anything, or how many crowds I had to
wiggle through just to get to food. Or buy a t-shirt.

Will I go again next year? Well,
probably. I hope I see some improvements. But hopefully, I'll be sitting at a table next year, so I won’t be doggy paddling
through crowds of nerds.

Seeya

Tegan Dumpleton aka SlugLady28

----------------

Credits

now that I'm back, i'll be continuing with the two week scedual. This has more to do with me trying to get other projects up and running then anything else. Art Slug will still be updating weekly, however.

Pics from the con will be posted on facebook soon.

Here are the main articles I read during
research (alot of people just copied and pasted the same one and then added an extra edit)

And by the way, I love how the opening
line on most articles reporting this was “wow, comic conventions
worrying about being popular, who-du-thunk-it?” as if this was
actually something new. It’s normal for some comic cons reach into
the 100 THOUSANDS, guys.